It’s true: Astrology can’t predict the state of your marriage

First, there is not an astrologer in the world today that makes prediction on marriage success using sun signs.  Thanks to the Internet there is enough information available to the general public about astrology to educate everyone that astrology involves far more than just the sign the Sun was in at the time of your birth.  

So I am very surprised that if an academic institution like the University of Manchester was going to conduct an in-depth study on the effectiveness of astrology on predicting marriage duration, that they used sun sign prediction for their massive study of ten million marriages.

They do preface the article by admitting that

A complete horoscope, or natal chart, includes information about where the sun, moon and planets would have been observed relative to each other and to the constellations of the zodiac at the time and place of the subject’s birth. Popular astrology in the West focuses on one key element in this chart: the ‘sun sign’ (or ‘star sign’ in colloquial parlance), which is determined by the position of the earth in its annual revolution around the sun.

So it doesn’t really make sense that the study then goes on to conflate “astrology” with Sun signs.

You can read the study yourself if you like, but suffice it to say that the research found no correlation between marriages and astrological signs that was greater than the statistical chance would suggest.

Even if we put aside for a moment the argument that Sun signs are generally one of the LEAST significant indicators of compatibility, I have found in 30 years of working with clients that the most successful marriages are among the least compatible charts.  Compatibility is just not that significant an indicator of marital success.

Most of us are seeking a soulmate – a partner who will help us to grow and evolve as human beings.  In order for that to be accomplished we often need a partner who has different strengths and weaknesses from ours.  Recently I did a reading for a couple who had one of the most incompatible charts I had ever seen, but they had been married for 50 years.  Each of them pushed the other, it wasn’t necessarily comfortable all the time, but it was one of the happiest partnerships I have seen.

Sun signs are important – they represent the soul’s journey this time around.  But when it comes to relationships, Sun signs are just not that important.